


my soul was suited to thy sky

by LadyAllana



Series: to time [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Thor (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Feels, M/M, Magic, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 19:25:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16225727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAllana/pseuds/LadyAllana
Summary: Thor is ready to absolutely anything for his brother, anything... but this is a bit too much.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for Loki and Thor. I said it before, but Nothing follows a certain plotline and a more skilled author would have been able to go through with a more complex and complete scenario but I’m just not your girl for that. Also, you know…worldbuilding. This will be about the Thor movies, filling in the necessary back plots that tie Thor 1 to Avengers.

1.

[in which Thor is (not) an idiot]

              How long did it take him to realize that something was fundamentally different; so, so very wrong? It had been like ants moving upon his skin, as if he had been on the edge of a cold trying to conquer his throat, a cough that threatened to tear apart his chest except it never came into being. He had been on edge all along, waiting for a storm that would have been out of his control. But as this was not a battle to be won, safely hidden in their palace upon the sky he had dismissed all the signs, all the warning bells ringing in his head for however long, until they turned into headaches that wouldn’t go away no matter how much ale he consumed.

 

It seemed as if he was an unwilling witness to a theater piece being played around him, a secret that he wasn’t supposed to find out about. It would have been less concerning to think his family cursed with some strange controlling spell, or himself hallucinating being held captive in a dungeon on a faraway world. Anything to confirm that Loki was the same as he had ever been, Thor would be ok with, physical torture seemed a more comforting thought than his brother under the effects of something Thor couldn’t fight with. So, when he could no longer dismiss his instincts and the pain of the doubt and uncertainty became a physical one, it finally raised a question he hadn’t been willing to admit for months. How long had this strange ailment had his brother in its grasp without Thor knowing?

 

              He had never been one quick to realize, never the first in class except for that stupid elective on Groot language which he had been forced to take after losing a bet to Loki. Something about the unity of the language had embraced him then, giving him an opportunity to be better at academics then Loki was, who had been ever so talented in elvish languages. Thinking back on it, it was around the time Loki was taking close combat lessons and his skills with the knife growing much sharper than randomly hurting Thor whenever it struck his fancy.

 

              But as it always was and was always going to be, Thor did his very best to disassociate his acts and decisions from the ever-calculating gaze of his brother, which seemed so sincere to him alone, with the capability to affect him a thousand times more than any warning anyone might have against it. Still, it seemed a better option to categorize the caution as an external one, as it allowed him to not to think about any internal reasons, not that there were any.

 

              Perhaps it showed the depths of his ignorance -willful or out of stupidity- that he saw the knowing spark in his mother’s sad, concerned gaze first, which had stopped glowing with kind amusement whenever she saw through one of Loki’s tricks. They had kept a careful distance from their mother ever since they had reached adulthood as it was the custom of the court, but Thor had forgotten how much closer his brother had been to their mother in their day to day lives, and how that had changed recently causing many a grief to their mother who smiled less and less these days.

 

              Next, he noticed Heimdall who wouldn’t look any of them in the eye during their trips down to Midgard. It was Fandral who shared small jokes with his brother, there were no snide remarks, there were no cautionary messages from the Gatekeeper as they descended through the rainbow bridge, all Thor found perfectly ordinary as he kept to his small talks with the others about the wonders of this new realm his brothers had opened up for them, with technologies they could’ve never dreamed about. It was only after he thought upon it that he realized how distanced Heimdall had become and even then, it didn’t occur to him to think how the same could be said about his own brother.  Then their father wouldn’t scold him after a trip gone wrong to Alfheim, citing importing talks about a mission to the planet of Sakaar he was planning to send Loki alone. And Thor had thought, _huh, then it is my punishment that Father has chosen Loki for this task._ He would accept it thinking about Sif lying in the infirmary with a broken leg and bruised ribs.

             

              It had been the girlfriend that had been the last straw for him. He had been noticing everything about his brother except his brother himself and this had been the same, except she was always in close proximity, always no more than a step away that Loki had unwillingly come into his vision, made Thor think about him no matter how much he tried to do otherwise. It was Nebula that had made all the pieces click together in the end.

 

 He knew that she had been around for some time, at least ever since his brother’s ventures to Midgard had begun. She was a willowy, tall redhead who was beautiful enough to make Thor’s head spin under any other circumstances, so he figured it was normal to be jealous, that it would go away if he were to bed a redhead or two himself.

 

              Except the jealousy within him only grew stronger. It brewed as a storm inside, uncontrollable, till weather changed and it started to rain constantly whenever she arrived in his father’s halls. Loki remained indifferent to his tantrums. Not even a smirk to acknowledge his victory over choosing a worthy bedmate, which made Thor even angrier somehow.

 

              It really amazed him how, until this very moment he has been blinded to this, being familiar with his brother’s ploys for so long.

 

              **

 

              Really, in the hindsight, he should have seen this coming.

 

              His brother never brought his paramours back home. If he did, it had always been a weird sort of fantasy, a game in which he measured the time between their departure and the guards finally realizing someone unwanted had roamed Odin’s halls and that happened when they were young, barely realizing and acting upon newly found desires.

 

              Later, if Loki had lovers he always kept them discreet, at least from Thor’s condescending gaze. Thor on the other hand never realized why the thought of his brother having a lover bothered him so when he had many on many different adventures. It was surely the fact that Loki was his brother that didn’t sit right with him, no one liked to think about their kin in such relations.

 

              Still, it was weird how through their long years they never made any effort to introduce any special someones to each other. He didn’t know if it was a conscious decision, or whose decision it had been though his brother was the one who took the majority of them in their relationship. It was this sudden retraction of an unwritten law, this very much in the present presence of the girl on Loki’s arm made it all the more apparent how he had been in the right keeping his women out of Thor’s sight, as even he knew that his reaction was unseemly, bordering on a petty, childish tantrum.

 

              As it always is with any story involving the grand victories of Thor, it had been a stormy night. Thunder reigned beyond the castle walls, which were chilled much to Odin’s dismay no matter what the servants did to keep the halls warm.  They dined under his mother’s disapproving gaze, which turned into a kind smile whenever she turned to Loki’s shy lover and tried to make small conversation with her.

 

              Nebula’s blue robes looked foreign on her porcelain skin, though she obviously had a warrior’s body like Sif, she lacked the elegance or perhaps the training that made ladies fit for court. Never one to notice such details, it bugged Thor still and he would even blame his mother’s disapproval to her lack of manners if she didn’t regularly stop to glare daggers at him.

 

              Loki kept a slender finger or two interlocked with hers throughout, all out in the open on the table, near their mother’s finery, with their father at the head of the table. Such atrocity and all but him threated it as if it was completely normal, something they had expected of Loki, something that they were even pleased about.

 

              Nebula, with her elegant hairdo and her blue eyes gleaming behind golden makeup designed to make men dizzy squeezed his fingers in return, with no pattern Thor could pinpoint, but he followed the small act like a madman, kept the seconds in between and wrote stories to the grimace behind their wholesome smiles.

 

              Loki looked at her with sympathy and care in his eyes, gaze softened with something Thor could only define as love. It was a look he reserved only for few, even with their mother this protective instinct didn’t exist, safe with the knowledge Frigga would be there to save Loki from whatever peril he managed to get himself into. No, that was a look reserved for Thor alone or had been until now.

 

              The truth of it was harder to swallow than the feast on the table tonight.

 

Then Loki and Nebula excused themselves to his rooms and the thunder grew stronger. Thor seated himself in his halls, friends all around the room sharing drinks and merry laughter but so very alone in the dark pit of his misery. Raindrops crashing to the windows and the cracks coming from the fireplace grew above the voices in the room until they turned into a constant howl in his ears.

 

“More ale!” he shouted to a servant girl, barely older than a child with a head full of red hair, though not nearly as shiny as Nebula’s. She scrambled off with what resembled tears in her eyes, in hurry to give him what he wanted as fast as she could.

 

“You are a fool, my friend.”

 

Fandral sent him a condescending look from where he was sitting near the fire before he returned to whatever drinking game he was busy playing with Hogunn. Thor made a gruff sound in acknowledgment, trying to turn an attentive ear to the story Volstagg’s wife, Hildegund was telling the people in around the table.

 

And truly, he should have been happy, sitting here, all his friends well and content. His shield brothers playing a complicated game that didn’t need nearly as much as drinks they were consuming. Volstagg trying to hold his wife close while she swatted his hands away laughing, trying to continue with her story.

 

              Sif was laughing too, a lilting voice that slowly disappeared when Thor’s murderous gaze fell upon her. She sobered instantly, composing herself, head down and two wayward black curls covering her eyes from him. Perhaps it was her, who he was hurting most of all.

 

              “You really should talk to him.” Fandral tried again, more seriously this time. He got up and put a hand on his shoulder, unprotected by armor in the middle of the night, from any attack that might be physical or like this. A lightning flashed through the grand windows. Volstagg’s newest babe who had been toddling around the room refusing sleep gave a shrieking cry for his mama.

 

              Hildegund hastily got up and shoved Thor out of the way in order to get to him as quickly as possible, the only one among them who truly didn’t care about enraging Thor further.

 

              Thor was too busy looking at Fandral, who had grown a stranger to him these days. Really, how stupid he was not to notice the state of things before. Fandral had been increasingly spending more time with Loki, going so far as to become the face of the campaign his brother was leading in Midgard. He had been hard at work to entice Sif to their side with increasingly more worthy offers. Thor knew Sif only stayed with him out of loyalty he couldn’t possibly return.

 

              Another thunder cracked.

 

              _How had Loki dared to….?_

 

              Thor stood up suddenly and the whole table shook with the force behind the simple act. He didn’t offer any goodbyes as he stomped away.

 

              It was Hildegund alone who called after him, but he was impossible to follow him with a babe attached to her breast and a husband holding her back.

 


	2. Chapter 2

2.

              He finds her screaming.

 

              The guards have mysteriously disappeared from Loki’s wing, not a single servant in sight. Even the candles, which are always alight at night fed by his brother’s own magic are flickering. Any other part of the palace, Thor would have blamed his own winds for this but Loki doesn’t allow any other magic to penetrate his walls willingly and as such, no wind blows through these corridors without his knowledge or consent.

 

              But it’s in this stiff stillness her voice reaches to his ears. That girl, Nebula who his brother has brought forth to meet their parents. The girl who held onto his brother’s hand tightly as he introduced her, officially to his family and friends. The girl who was whisked away to his quarters early in the night, leaving Thor to drink his anger away with his friends.

 

              She is screaming, and it doesn’t take him long to realize it’s not a scream of rage, directed at his brother countless times by countless different people because of his nature.

 

              It’s a scream of agony.

 

              Thor alone isn’t strong enough to go past Loki’s magical barriers, but Mjolnir has never let him down in pursuit of a damsel in distress before. It’s rare, him defying Loki’s magic in one way or another. He remembers, vaguely, doing it as a child before power and skill were of importance and it was only their imagination that set their barriers. As they grew older, Loki’s magic gained a precision that Thor could never hope to attain, and he eventually gave up pursuit altogether, focusing on different wars starting with his adolescent years until the only magic he could control became one with his loyal hammer. Mjolnir helped him to focus his energy, which wouldn’t do much against say, a perfectly directed curse but often did wonders against sorcerer’s barriers, having been strong enough in its blows to shatter even the most tightly woven of their webs.

 

              He doesn’t know what his brother is doing to her but no that’s a cruel way for his thoughts to turn, surely they have both been attacked from the outside and Loki is already down which is a more likely scenario than his vindictive but kind-hearted brother who never raised a hand to those who didn’t deserve his rage attacking a maiden.

 

              Yes, Thor must go and save his brother.             

 

*

 

              It’s an unseemly sight that welcomes him. The smoke and the rubble of the wall he had expected, he created the mess of it after all, but it’s not a battle scene that he finds inside nor is it a misguided evil fantasy gone horribly wrong.

 

              Both occupants of the room are dressed still and neither seem to be bleeding. Behind the dark red drapes of his brother’s bed, he can see a white body sat up straight. His brother is wearing a different white shirt, one like they prefer in Midgard his mind supplies, his fingers are coated in some clear fluid, chanting some spell Thor couldn’t place if he tried.

 

              The girl, Nebula, lies on the bed devoid of the many goose feather pillows his brother prefers to sleep on, her top stripped bare but a flimsy black shirt that barely covers her shoulders. Her screams have turned into whimpers and Thor can see the tears falling to the burgundy sheets from her emerald eyes.

 

              The thunder creaks outside.

 

              Something inside squeezes his heart, twists it until Thor can feel blood gushing out of it. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

 

              This should not be a scene that calls for jealousy, his mind screams to his roaring heart. _Be reasonable._ Because while his feelings were too busy protesting to the fact that Loki was indeed bedding this woman, his eyes have seen that it’s not a massage that he is performing on her lower back, but some kind of surgery.

 

              There is no blood because her back seems to be all machinery. But the nerves must be there still because trying to get up to cover herself from him who came blazing in, she crumbles upon the bed with an anguished cry.

 

              Loki puts a steady reassuring hand on her shoulder, his face carefully emotionless and his body relaxed as if not to alarm her. But Thor can almost see the magic he puts behind his touch to keep her down.

 

              “What…brother, _what is going on here?”_

 

*

 

              Bringing Nebula into Asgard is necessary, especially if they want to build the necessary connections with Sif and Brunnhilde, but it’s particularly hard with the Allfather’s innate distrust of strangers and Heimdall who has been pretty silent about his plans since he came back, but who is certainly aware of just who Nebula is.

 

              However, her recent encounter with her father deems the action necessary, he can’t possibly help her in Stark’s lab this time.

 

              Having her pose as his recent paramour is convenient, Loki has made many act as such as centuries passed by, whenever it suited to his fancy or the grand scheme that he was busy planning at the time. A kiss here, a touch there… As a prince of the realm he is not supposed to show public affection much anyways, and it is expected of him to have a string of paramours at least until he marries someone worthy of his position.

 

              Working in such close quarters for the last couple of months, it’s not hard to imagine what might have been, that in a completely different universe where he hadn’t been taunted by her father, or if she hadn’t been broken to such extremes this might indeed have been the case. She is a beauty, with or without the glamour he has put on her, intelligent, cunning, ruthless… all the things he has aspired to be. She is also the second sibling, disregarded by a cruel father for the sake of the better, stronger firstborn, blue in more aspect than one, and their similarities are only a couple of the millions of reasons why they never would have worked in the long run.

 

              The biggest reason why is standing right in front of them, covered in dust and rubble. Electricity dances behind his tanned skin, something Loki has disregarded so long for he only sought the lightning flashing on the tip of Mjolnir, it’s not too late to admit that he has failed to realize the greatness of his brothers seidr until their sister forced him to realize the full extent of his powers.

 

              This Thor, Thor with big flowing -dusty- locks and two seeing eyes is unaware of his true potential. But he is also unaware of who Loki is, unaware of the pain and the suffering that awaits him.

 

              He is Loki’s idiotic brother still.

 

              Loki would sacrifice whole words to make sure this outrage in his eyes never fades into despair and then finally, defeat.

 

              But at the moment what he feels can only be described as disbelief, or more appropriately, outrage. The spell they had been in the middle of was as delicate as healing magic could get and Loki was already thinking about asking for Frigga’s help before Thor even interrupted them.

 

              Healing magic requires a certain gentleness and care Loki never did possess and though Nebula has assured both him and Stark again and again that she could handle the pain, it’s more emotionally taxing to cause this much of it to her than he is willing to admit. Even after these many years, he still has spells he’d rather his mother cast for him.

 

              Nebula is panting under him, determined not to scream but Loki can feel the pain radiating from the damaged nerve ending in waves, mutilated so far that Loki’s magic is not intricate enough to untangle them. 

 

              He and Stark have been working on her gradually for months whenever they had the time, but for every step they took towards a better life for her, every encounter with her father took them ten steps back. For every stitch, for every fix, she is broken ten times over, because of her _mistakes._ The tally of her misdeeds grow daily in Thanos’s eyes, she is simply to busy to be everywhere at once these days. She revels in the disobedience, Loki knows, but he is really not sure how much she can take of this torture before it becomes too much for even her to handle. Nebula grew up in pain and misery, but with despair, she is also learning how to hope after so long.

 

              Loki looks at Thor, trying not to meet his eyes because he is unsure of how he will react to the emotions he will see there. _And hope is such a dangerous emotion._

 

*

 

              They look like little children, caught red-handed by their parents. No, but really, they do because Loki has the same defiant look in his eyes, the one he had every single time their parents made them sit side by side, hands in their laps, facing down. Except, Loki didn’t look down, even when it was his fault and not Thor’s like most of the time.

 

              Maybe that was one the long list of many reasons why Odin preferred him. He realized now, that it was his brother who owned up to his mistakes while he covered.

 

              And as quick as he had been able to back then, Loki wipes off whatever emotion – it used to be tears, now its flat-out rage.

 

              “As nice as this has been-“ he says, getting up, with that sleazy smile on his face, the one Thor loves when its directed at their enemies but hates whenever it's turned upon him. Thor has enough shame in himself to feel sorry for the destroyed wall behind him. “We are quite busy, so if you will excuse us.”

 

*

 

              “No you will not be excused.”

 

              Nebula’s pain is thrumming beneath his fingers, penetrating his own skin in its intensity. Loki would be concerned with internal bleeding if Thanos had left her with any veins to bleed with. She has been robbed of her blood as well as many of the organs, robbed of herself and her femininity with it. But what she feels isn’t a phantom pain, as many would feel in the absence of pain they’d rather have than to deal with the metal monstrosity she has become. Her nerve endings alight with intentional agony her father has planted there. It doesn’t put her in any urgent danger per se, but though he has claimed villainy before, it’s beyond his self-control to let her suffer like this, amplified by his ministrations to locate the center of her misery.

 

              Thor, bless him, looks on the edge of a temper tantrum Loki has no time for. But it’s funny, these childish outbursts of his brother used to bother him so, drive him crazy even, but now they put a silly wistful smile on his face. How he wished to cherish them now, how he wished to have cherished them before. He wants to sit there, and watch is as a theatre piece. What had seemed to be never-ending back then has proven itself to be painfully transitory, Loki is now ready to pay for the best seats in the house for another performance.

 

              He missed this Thor who is mightier than the sky above, with his brows crossed so adorably, yelling at him with unmissable scoff in his voice, the same question he has asked a million times over the years. _“What is the meaning of this Loki?”_

 

              And Loki would have let this go on, to see the red grow up on his cheeks and the vein in his forehead would appear with all its glory. But the pain is swiftly creeping up his arm, to his shoulder, he doesn’t want to sever the line between them before he can show it to mother, but it would do him no good for it to reach his own heart.

 

              It wouldn’t kill him of course, but Nebula’s mechanical body is much more resilient to this hellish suffering than his flesh and blood one. Heart attacks at least, are never fun.

 

              Of course, Thor doesn’t know that.

 

              “Hush…” he whispers to Nebula, he can’t send any numbing magic down the line because he can’t calculate the consequences. A tear goes down her cheek, staining the blood red sheets.

 

Of course, Thanos would leave the tear ducts in, they are much more effective than blood to project her suffering.

 

              Loki quite admires the concept of pain, but he always had a distaste for sadists, even long before his path crossed with Thanos.

 

              “Thor!” he shouts, tone snake sharp, cutting Thor’s anger fueled tirade like a blade. “I need mother.” Thor shuts up then because for years Loki has rarely called her anything but “The Queen” with company, as court protocol dictates.

 

              “Now, Thor.” He says again, words biting mostly because the pain is earnestly affecting him now, edges of his vision going blurry. “Please.” He adds, the tone of the request is the same, but it feels very much like a feeble order. _He hates begging even after all that happened._

 

              Thor must have seen something in his eyes, or he feels pity for the maiden lying half dead in his brother’s bed because he turns and leaves in search of Frigga.

 

              Another thunder cracks outside, lightning trying to penetrate Loki’s windows, held at bay by Loki’s own seidr. He looks down to his hand, porcelain above porcelain, trembling as the tips of his fingers turn blue. He isn’t sure if it’s him or Nebula shivering.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having some trouble with the pov's. I really wanted to show Thor's side of things first, but I just don't think he is observant of his feelings or about what's happening outside his own world. Like I have a lot to talk about but I don't think that those would be what Thor would have dwelled upon? 
> 
> Loki will have more insight, hopefully...


End file.
